Fishing For Montana

Image Above: The Montnana John Wiggler

A couple of weeks ago a fellow angler who fishes in Montana called John sent me an e-mail offering his own thoughts on fishing lures and pike and suggested I make a wobbler and lose the central treble and replace the rear with a single hook. I have had to learn to take advice it is not ability that comes naturally I prefer to make my own mistakes before seeing sense. So after initially rejecting the idea for no good reason other than it was somebody else’s, I had a little time to think.

I have on balance caught considerably more fish on single hooks than on trebles, admittedly many have been with bait, flies or as feather rigs but when it comes to lure fishing I have fallen into that trap of believing more hooks can only be  good. There is a point when I suppose a lure could carry enough hooks to be considered as a storage device in its own right rather than a piece of tackle. What are all these hooks doing they cannot all be hooked into the fish. The initial idea for multi trebles is to insure that if a predator so much as looks at the lure the chances are it is going to feel some chemically sharpened metal. Once hooked the other trebles can become a headache either damaging the fish or hooking up with other debris when the fish runs for cover. I have a fear of landing nets or should I say a combination of landing nets, fish and treble hooks. On one occasion this cocktail led almost to full scale surgery removing one hook from the fish and other from the fish and the net: I have never used so many forceps and pliers and still come away with a whole in my net.

Still one lure one hook is a big step. I use a single treble on the Hybrid casting spoons and that works well especially for avoiding weed and as I often fish with my feet in water unhooking and returning pike can be as easy as giving a gentle shake in the right direction. There is always a chance I could miss a hook up but this is not just a problem with single hooks I have lost fish on three hook lures.

I sent an e-mail back to John to let him know I would have a go at making a single hook wobbler when I got the chance.

The Testing Session.

It wasn’t pretty as my prototypes seldom are, but it was through wired and I was pleased with the way I had concealed the weight. It ran a little shallow just what I needed to deal with the summer weed growth. But the action was great a tight wiggle rather than a wobble. As a mark of respect to that other Great Montanan, Norman McClean the author of ‘A River Runs Through It’, I dressed the single hook with a bit silver flash.

Once again I found my preparation a little lacking when I hooked my first pike on the ‘Montana John’ prototype, my camera was poised but unresponsive. Holding the rod up with one hand I opened the battery compartment with the other while simultaneously remembering that the battery was still on charge as it had been all night. I put the camera down and reached for the mobile phone which also has a camera but not the best quality.

I had been ten minutes at the lake and this was my first fish all one pound of a pikeling with a single hook firmly in the side of its jaw. John was right, unhooking the fish was simple it never even left the water. I put the prototype away vowing to give it a proper coat of paint but the pikes teeth had already punctured the balsa. I took six more pike over the next three hours on various homemade lures and made numerous poor quality images with my mobile phone and all the time planning to put the Montana John into some kind of production. 

Image Below: Mobile Phone Pictures of Pike

Five of Jacks

Image Above: Mist on the water, Pennington Flash

The sun was low enough to burst through the bankside foliage and cut in amongst the mist that had risen overnight. I padded along excited to be at a new water and a little in awe of the surroundings having spent too long fishing in an inner city park. The lake or “flash” as it is known sits in a hollow rather than a valley and owes its existence at least partially to mining subsidence. This is flood land and there is a dampness about the place that reaches far beyond the banks. In the distance I traced the low arch of a Pennine ridge that seemed familiar but the name escaped me. The landscape was still in that process of naturalisation, its industrial past had been softened with spoil heaps weekly shrouded in scrub and sun bleached grasses. The lake is something special as all large bodies of water are, we can build roads, pave earth and manicure landscapes but a lake will always have something unyielding in its nature.

I set up quickly and made my first cast with a wobbler which slid through the air trailing a thread that settled out like gossamer as the slap of wood on the water broke the silence. The water was not deep and the lure tugged at weed snatching stems, I watched mesmerised as it rolled into view its rear end flicking like a spark of life. I worked the banks casting from gaps in the thicket of shrubs that lined this part of the lake. The weed was becoming a problem; I held my rod high making the wobbler run at a shallower depth but it wasn’t the easiest way to fish. I moved again and hitched on one of my hybrid casting spoons in the knowledge that if I kept a steady pace it would run just below the surface out of the weed. The lure ate up the distance between access points leaving little out of reach. In the clear water I could watch it react to every jerk and nod of the rod as it swam and flickered almost with a searching action, when the rod was still it settled back into a side to side roll, spooning its way over the weed.

Just off a reed bed, my first pike stopped the lure in its tracks and then set off for cover, I wound as fast as I could hoping to prevent a scramble through the reeds to retrieve them. In the end the fish came in parallel to the bank with his head buried in a mop of weed almost as if he was having a bad hair day. At about three pounds it was a good start to the day and having only a single treble to remove meant he was back in the water without too much messing about. Unfortunately I had run out of bank as fishing is only permitted on certain stretches of the shore and I wasn’t keen on casting in amongst the carp fishermen I had passed. I headed back to the car to drive over to the far side of the lake.

The sun had stirred up a breeze that chaffed through the reeds and pushed the surface of the water up into wavelets. This was obviously the windward side of the lake a green film of algae clung to the margins but beyond this it was almost clear water. I took another jack in the first few casts unhooking it in the water and before moving along the bank.

A little later and far out in the lake I felt a tug on the lure and then nothing, I cast again but misjudged the angle required and ended up far from the mark. The next cast was a little better and I found the tug again which had come from a seven pounder. I had hopes for something bigger maybe into doubles but seven pound was nice and heading in the right direction.

I took another two pike over the next hour, not of any size but it didn’t matter I was catching fish on a lure I had designed and produced myself, maybe the testing is over. 

Image Below: Jack pike on a Hybrid Casting Spoon.

Jura For Breakfast

Image Above: Angry pike on a blue home made wobbler (Devil Minnow)

I wonder sometimes if I manage to catch fish despite myself. This morning I was out at six to test my devil minnows and a few other things. The lake was quite, save for a couple of dog walkers so I had the place to myself; it was a little overcast with a light breeze almost perfect testing conditions.  I set up my rod and bait caster failing to adjust the brake for a heavier lure, needless to say I spent twenty minutes after my first cast sorting out the bird’s nest I had created on the spool. The scissors came out and my line got a little shorter. After I put my spool back in I also failed to tighten the locking nut creating another bird’s nest a few casts later which stopped the lure in mid-flight but only briefly as the snap link on my trace snapped and my sinking lure sunk out of sight. The shock also managed to send the level wind out of sync causing it to stall on one side.

There are many words in many languages that describe my feelings at that moment, chose your own.

Luckily I carry a spare fixed spool reel so I wound on the line from my bait caster and not having a spare trace I put a split ring on where the snap link had been. This was not the best solution as I had to open the split ring every time I needed to change lures so I opted to limit my selection and forego a full testing session.

My rod which is actually designed for a fixed spoon reel felt like a different animal and I was soon throwing a blue devil minnow the length of the lake.  After about an hour of covering empty water I saw some movement close into the bank and cast almost parallel to shore.  The lure was running a little over a rod length out from the shallow shore when a pike bolted from under the bank about six feet away a grabbed hold. I stepped straight into the water and after only a couple of turns on the reel I was holding a four or five pound angry pike.

I thought it best not to tempt fate and packed up; the cold from sitting on the bank messing with fishing reels had worked itself into legs and fingers. I am not a drinker but a guy I know told me the only way to warm up quickly was whiskey and chocolate. At home I didn’t bother to find a glass but took a swig straight from a bottle of Jura, single malt and remembered when I used to fish in the Atlantic with the island of Jura as a backdrop.  Just one swig of whiskey, more lures to make and a clear head required.

Image Below: looking back to the Isle Of Jura (on horizon)